trouble. I wonder whether you are aware of the mental processes that precede birth? Just before birth the soul sees as a cinematograph film (as it were) of its future life; not all the details, but the broad outlines which are determined by its fate; these things it can not alter, but according to its reaction to them, so will its future life be planned. Thus it is that although we can not alter our fate in this life, our future lives lie entirely in our own hands.

“Now we know the record, we can guess what manner of fate lies upon this girl. She owes a life debt to a man and a woman; the suffering she caused recoils upon her. There is no need for a specialized hell, each soul builds its own.”

“But she is not suffering,” I said; “she is merely in a passive condition. The only one who suffers is the mother.”

“Ah,” said Dr. Taverner, “therein lies the crux of the whole matter. When she had that brief glimpse of what lay before her, she rebelled against her fate and tried to repudiate her debt; her soul refused to take up the heavy burden. It was this momentary flash of knowledge which gave her eyes their strange, unchildlike look which so startled her mother.”

“Do people always have this foreknowledge?” I asked.

“They always have that glimpse, but its memory usually lies dormant. Some people have vague premonitions, however, and occult training tends to recover these lost memories, together with others belonging to previous lives.”

“Having found out the cause of Miss Cailey’s trouble, what can you do to cure her?”

“Very little,” said Dr. Taverner. “I can only wait and watch her. When the time is ripe for the settlement of the balance, the other actors in the old tragedy will come along and in consciously claim the payment of their debt. She will be given the opportunity of making restitution and going on her way fate-free. If she is unable to fulfill it, then she will be taken out of life and will be rapidly forced back into it again for another attempt, but I think (since she has been brought to me) one soul is to be given another chance of entering its body. We will see.”

I OFTEN used to watch Mona Cailey after she was installed at the Hindhead nursing home. In spite of its mask-like expressionlessness,